Asako Serizawa

Legend of the Five Rings card from Glory of the Empire

Card Type

Personality

Force

2

Chi

4

Honor Requirement

6

Gold Cost

7

Personal Honor

3

Clan

Phoenix

Keywords

Inquisitor, Magistrate, Phoenix Clan, Shugenja, Void

Card Text

Void Open, w: Give -4F to a target Personality with lower Personal Honor than Serizawa's Chi.

Legality

Destroyer War (Celestial), Race for the Throne (Samurai)

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: I was under the impression you could give a personality/follower a force penalty more than that cards force. That's one of the reasons Asako Serizawa and Hou Hou/ Last One combo works. However, in a previous ruling for Unstoppable Power, it was ruled that you only gain honor for the amount taken down to zero, not the amount lost. For example: I have all 5 element traits in my army and the opponent has x number of 1 force personalities. I target one of his personalities with Unstoppable Power. How much force does the personality lose? How much honor do I gain? If the answer to either question is 1, why? How much in force bonuses does his personality need to get back to 1 Force? If the answer is more than a +1 bonus, why, if the personality only "lost" 1 force?
  Thank you. Unstoppable Power Text Battle: Give a target enemy card a Force penalty equal to the number of different element keywords in your army. Gain Honor equal to the amount of Force it lost. You may take an additional Battle action.
  A: Oh. Sorry, that took you longer than I expected.
  Still, see here first.
  As for the rest of your question that the link tunnel above doesn't specifically address:
  Simply put, "amount of Force it lost" is not the same thing as "the amount of the applied penalty". Checking how much the total actually changes constitutes the "loss", but the penalty remains, to be overcome by later bonuses.
  If you give a -5F penalty to a 1F Personality, it only "loses" 1F down to the minimum of zero. On the flipside, if he then receives a +3F bonus on top of that, he hasn't overcome the -5F penalty, so his Force is still 0. Thus, in such a scenario, he won't have "gained" Force either (if a hypothetical effect like Unstoppable Power's checked for a "gain" of Force). Brook Cunningham, "Unstoppable Power/ less than 0 force", 13 Aug 2009
• Q: In regards to viewtopic.php?f=59&t=77744
  Why does "Setting a stat to a value" look for anything other than the current value of the stat? This, at least to me, goes against the blind cards philosophy completely.
  In the following example:
  1. Houhou is given a -4 force penalty with Asako Serizawa. 2. Houhou casts Ritual of Summoning. 3. Turn ends, and -4 force penalty from Asako Serizawa expires.
  Why does Ritual of Summoning see Houhou's force as anything but 0? Should't it be as follows:
  1. Houhou is given a -4 force penalty with Asako Serizawa.
  ---Houhou now has a -4F penalty until end of turn, and 0 force.
  2. Houhou casts Ritual of Summoning.
  ---Ritual of Summoning checks Houhou's force. It's zero. It gives Houhou a permanent +5F bonus. Houhou now has a -4F penalty and a +5F bonus, therefore has 1 force.
  3. Turn ends, -4F penalty goes away, Houhou has a +5F bonus, for a total 7F.
  Back to my question - Why does Ritual of Summoning care for anything other than Houhou's current force?
  ~Andrew
  A: But Ritual of Summoning doesn't say, "Give the Shugenja +5f," it says, "Set the Shugenja's force to 5." The Rules say this means, give the Personality a force bonus or penalty sufficient to make his force 5.
  In the case of a Houhou with a -4f penalty, a bonus of +7f is required to make Houhou's force 5.
  See Setting stats to a value: "To set a stat to a value, give an appropriate bonus or penalty." Alex Jones, "Ritual of summoning and negative force bonus", 24 Jul 2009
• Q: So with 3 of the Asako Serizawa in play you could make a Hou Hou up to 15F, which would be able to return from death with the same force bonus?
  A: Yes. Zen Faulkes, "Ritual of summoning and negative force bonus", 24 Jul 2009
• Q: There is some question over at viewtopic.php?f=244&t=77181 about what happens when you give a personality a negative force bonus then raise their for with ritual of summoning. Some people seem to think that you can give a personality more negative bonus then their force, effectively giving someone -12 force. According to the rule book force can not be lowered past 0 so any force penalty beyond was is required to set the personalities force to 0 would be negated.
  Example:
  Houhou is given a -4 force penalty with Asako Serizawa and his force now becomes 0 with a -2 force penalty. Asako Serizawa tries to give Houhou another -4 but because his force is currently 0 it has not effect. Houhou casts Ritual of Summoning and permanently gets a +5 force bonus. At the end of turn the -2 force penalty goes away setting his permanent force to 7.
  A: http://rules.l5r.com/Card_features#Maxi ... _penalties: "To get a stat's current value at any given time, do steps A through C, below:
  "A: Apply all current bonuses and penalties." Also note section below -- setting a stat to a value is just a bonus or penalty.
  "B: If the total is below 0, treat it as 0. (Does not apply to Family Honor, Honor Requirements, and stats with a + or – sign such as an Item’s Force and Chi stats.)
  "C: If the total is less than a minimum or more than a maximum, treat it as the minimum or maximum." Zen Faulkes, "Ritual of summoning and negative force bonus", 23 Jul 2009